Bringing together the project partners and expert teachers from Finland, Norway, Portugal, Italy, led to a very exciting and productive exchange of ideas, while reviewing and developing the phase one course modules for the CPDLab project. The project is developing three courses – a pedagogical-led Interactive Whiteboard course; a policy-led eSafety course; an implementation-led Future Classroom Scenarios course linked to the FP7, large scale iTEC project.

Working in EUN’s Future Classroom Lab, the group worked on reviewing and developing each of the three courses and first modules to share the wide-range of experience and best practice held within each partner country. The first modules will be piloted in the Autumn and offered through the EUN and project partners, with the full courses advertised in the Comenius funded in-service training database from the Summer of 2013. The Future Classroom Lab will be used to bring together those involved in teacher training at national, regional and local level to deliver the courses in a ‘train the trainer’ model, so they can be cascaded within local training models.

Started in October 2011, the CPDLab project is a small, two year project sitting within the Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. The aim of the project is to deliver three courses for Secondary Schools in the areas of Interactive Whiteboards, eSafety and future scenarios.

The project's Finnish partners (Finnish National Board of Education and the University of Oulu) are leading the course development workstream, developing the course specification and outlines following a modular, blended learning approach. Each partner has proposed a group of expert teachers to work with them on helping develop the courses further during a course development workshop which will be held in Brussels in April. The first modules should be available in the summer 2012, to trial more widely with the project’s associate partners and through the linked programmes of iTEC, Insafe and the IWB working group. More information about the project is available at the website http://cpdlab.eun.org

The CPDLab project is a small, two year project within the Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. The project started in October 2011. The project is now looking for an independent, external evaluator to support project's Quality Assurance work-stream. Working within the project’s quality assurance plan, the independent evaluation will focus on the extent feedback from the wider group of stakeholders in the Pedagogical Advisory Board have impacted upon and influenced the course development process.

Task description

The independent evaluation takes place within the project’s Quality Assurance work-stream (work package 4), which is led by project partner DGIDC, Portugal. The independent evaluation forms part of the overall Quality Assurance plan, and sits alongside the Project’s Pedagogical Board.

Working within the project’s quality assurance plan, the independent evaluation will focus on the extent feedback from the wider group of stakeholders in the Pedagogical Advisory Board have impacted upon and influenced the course development process.

In addition, the independent evaluator would be looked to act as a ‘critical friend’ to the CPDLab project team, reviewing and providing informal feedback and recommendation to help inform the three courses produced by CPDLab meet the needs of teachers from across Europe.

As part of the application process, the proposed independent evaluation methodology and process should be outlined, together with the number of different instruments to be deployed help gather feedback.

Duration

The independent evaluation will be carried out over the period April 2012 to September 2013. Most of the evaluation work will be done remotely, with the work spread over the period. In terms of total days, it is expected to be in the region of 10 to 15 days spread over the period of 18 months.

Budget and plan

The evaluator should provide EUN with an estimation of the costs for the successful performance and delivery of the above mentioned activities, as well as a draft implementation plan and timescales. Total professional fees should be separated out from the costs eg: expected travel costs.

Selection criteria

The selection process will be based on the following factors:

The relevant experience and quality of the person/organisation who will perform the services (background, expertise and knowledge of teacher professional development, previous experience in project/programme evaluation);

The proposed methodology and approach to be employed;

The cost of the services concerned and the timeliness of the delivery of the reports.

Proficiency in the English language.

The deadline for applications is: 17:00 CET, 24th February 2012. Applications should be submitted as a word document, providing details of the proposed approach, experience and costs. This document must be no longer than 10 pages in length.